Tag Archives: sex

This is the news, “Women activists present condoms to Philippine bishops.” What’s new? The Philippine Catholic bishops have been waging a bitter war with the government against the use of contraceptives. The Catholic church has never been weakened with its stiff stand against Family Planning and the use of artificial methods of birth control.

The Philippine Catholic Bishops have always been critical of any administration or political parties that support birth control and family planning. In fact presidential aspirants in the like of Senator Noynoy Aquino have been very careful with their stand with regards to population issues. The Bishop can always call on the Catholic faithful some 75 millions out of the 90 to 100 million Filipinos not to vote for any candidate who supports the family planning program of the government. One of the important criteria the good Bishops are looking to any politician vying for an elective position in the government is his policies and stand on the issues of family planning and birth control.

Even if President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo knows the significance of high birth rate in combating poverty problems in the Philippines, having been once a DSWD secretary, she tends to be careful with its population management program so as not to provoke the ire of the already critical Clergies to her administration. The bishops also took advantage of the government soft stand on Family Planning and birth control by calling for a ban on the advertisement of condom however the Arroyo’s administration only shrugged off their demands.

As if trying to maim the bishops stiff opposition on birth control and contraceptives, here comes Health Secretary Esperanza Cabral (former DSWD Secretary) “handing out condoms on February 13 as part of an information campaign on HIV-AIDS.” Her action may not necessarily be the collective stand of the government but nobody in the bureaucracy stood up to sanction her. She had not violated any law, she just exercised her political independence to promote actions responsive for the health and general welfare of the entire population. Yet the Bishops angrily called for her to resign.

But Health Secretary Cabral found allies on women’s health and rights advocate groups like the Party of the Workers who picketed and presented two baskest full of condoms at the headquarters of the Catholic Bishops Conference.

Judy Ann Miranda, the party’s secretary-general asked the bishops to “bless the condoms as a conciliatory gesture to unite for reproductive health and women’s rights” but unfortunately no bishop was around to receive/bless it.

As a response to the women activists action the bishops said, through spokesman Monsignor Pedro Quitorio, that they could not compromise on the church’s opposition to birth control devices. Again, a manifestation of the unwavering Catholic dogma on contraceptive devices which are perceived to tamper with the flow of nature and life. They the bishops however have no specific response on how to promote women’s reproductive health and quality of life.

“If contraceptives are immoral, nothing can change that… not even the vote of the whole country can change that,” Quitorio said. But should he not consider also immoral to see the health of women deteriorate just because couples are denied on the used of contraceptive devices. I think there is nothing more immoral than allowing spread of diseases and overpopulating the limited space we have in this country just because we can not control our rapid population growth.

And going back to politics, is the issue on contraceptives a leverage for a politician to improve his chances of winning in the presidential race? Will the good bishops support senator Manny Villar if he makes a covenant with the Catholic Church in the Philippines never to support legislative measures that advocate the use of contraceptives and other birth control devices? What will happen to the leading presidential candidate on surveys now should he decide to go against the bishops on their resistance to contraceptives and population control programs of the government?

The Supreme court has spoken, smith is not guilty. It was “a spontaneous, unplanned romantic episode with both parties carried away by their passions and stirred up by the urgency of the moment caused probably by alcoholic drinks they took…”

What does this mean? Lance Cpl. Daniel Smith can go back home a free man with his dignity restored and he has nothing to be ashame of. He can see friends, relatives, and people around head up; he could be called immaculate had not the court ruled he had a consensual sex with a drunk Filipina. A, smith is no longer a virgin, he proved himself a “fucker.” Perhaps there could have been a repeat performance had he properly parted with her with a word, Thank you.

Suddenly the moment of parting came and the Marines had to rush to the ship. In that situation, reality dawned on Nicole—what her audacity and reckless abandon, flirting with Smith and leading him on, brought upon her.

“That must have been shattering. But added to this was the mocking moment she heard from inside the van: ‘Leave that bitch!’ or words to that effect, which really broke her as she shouted back her denial: ‘I am not a bitch!’,” the court went on.

From the court’s point of view, Nicole cried rape out of shame—“dumped in a curb literally with her pants down”—upon the thought of her mother and boyfriend Brian.

“She had to hit back in the only way she could—to salvage at least a vestige of her self-esteem,” the court concluded.

So smith is the loser, he had been sentenced and jailed for sometime for an offense he did not commit at all. He has the looks every woman is looking for which they term in Filipino “makalaglag panty.” What about Smith’s compensation for a lost virginity or innocence of his manhood (if ever he had at the time he was on top of Nicole)? Maybe Nicole should even be thankful to Smith for giving her the taste of glory from a good looking guy.

But this is not so from public perception. Nicole was a victim and deserve to get justice on the shame and pain inflicted on her. It’s unfortunate, the appellate court look at it the other way around. For how could she convinced the court it was rape when it found no evidence to show “force, threat, and intimidation.” If ever Nicole was drunk, then she could not “danced non-stop to the urgent beat of rock and hip-hop music in an inebriated state for 15 minutes without stumbling clumsily on the floor.”

She lied including the other witnesses, if I were to interpret what the court said as:

This gap in her narration with the malingering explanation that she was dizzy and could not remember is dubiously fanciful for being what the court perceptively describes as contrary to ordinary experience of man,” the court said.

The court found the testimonies given by three persons at the Neptune Club who described Nicole’s supposed drunken state to be “rehearsed.”

The court was suspicious that the witnesses uniformly used the word “pasuray-suray” (walking unsteadily as if swaying) in describing Nicole before the court, but they never used the word when they spoke to investigators.

“The uniform description gives the impression that the testimonies were rehearsed,” the court said.

Unfortunately Nicole is no longer here and neither her mom is interested to pursue to the case to the Supreme Court. Nicole is now in the US and probably will be married soon to her boyfriend. Perhaps Smith could be invited also to the wedding and give his best wishes to the bride and groom.

But then this is not what most people think about. Not that Smith was not guilty, he may have been lucky the victim prefered to doubt if she was raped at all. Of course we respect the decision of the court. The magistrates were trained to evaluate cases based on evidences. Ours may only be a conjecture, it may not be the truth. But who has the truth, or at least closest to the truth.

To most of the Filipina women, probably Smith’s acquittal may only suggest one thing, the danger that Filipina women can be raped anywhere and may not get justice at all.

Filipino men would rather talk about virility—how long they could last for sex rather than the size of their penises. Unlike their male counterpart in Congo who feared to have been victims of penis snatching, they are not that superstitious and fear of shrinking their penises. They are afraid however of being known as uncircumsized and losing in capacity to maintain long time erection.

Lately, Congo had been on the forefront of the news due to rumor of “penis stealing.” This resulted to the arrest of “13 suspected sorcerers accused of using black magic to steal or shrink men’s penises after a wave of panic and attempted lynchings triggered by the alleged witchcraft”by the Congo police according to Reuters.

“Reports of so-called penis snatching are not uncommon in West Africa, where belief in traditional religions and witchcraft remains widespread, and where ritual killings to obtain blood or body parts still occur.”Police also detained 14 alleged victims who claimed that sorcerers made their genetals shrink or disappear by simply touching them. Likewise police had to arrest accused sorcers and their victims to prevent bloodshed similar to what happened in Ghana a decade ago. Angry mobs had beaten to death 12 suspected penis snatchers.

“Rumors of penis theft began circulating last week in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo’s sprawling capital of some 8 million inhabitants. They quickly dominated radio call-in shows, with listeners advised to beware of fellow passengers in communal taxis wearing gold rings.” Some residents called it an extortion as victims are asked to pay some money in order to get cured.

Chief Jean-Dieudonne Oleko of Kinshasa police wanted to tell the (supposed to be) victims that it was only one huge joke.“But when you try to tell the victims that their penises are still there, they tell you that it’s become tiny or that they’ve become impotent. To that I tell them, ‘How do you know if you haven’t gone home and tried it’,” he said

Some people of Kinshasa however accused a separatist sect (from a nearby Bas-Congo province) of being behind the alleged witchcraft as a revenge for government crackdown on its members recently. But a certain Alain Kalala, 29 years old, who earn for a living by selling phone credits near a Kinshasa police station claimed the news to be true. “It’s real. Just yesterday here, there was a man who was a victim. We saw. What was left was tiny.”

Unlike their African male counterpart, Filipinos have been known to have short (but tough) penises. and are not even bothered about the size of their organ; they are more concerned with circumcision of which it is a social disgrace if one is not. Filipino men would rather talk ofvirility and length of time they could maintain penile erection. Filipino men count on the number of times they can have sex with their partner over the night (or during the day) they plan to have sex.To date fertility rate in the Philippines is high and it is one of the countries with fast growing population in the world.